


Bloom and Blow Away

by crna_macka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 03:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3795223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crna_macka/pseuds/crna_macka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke tries to come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by a tumblr anon: "Can I put in a work order for Doctor Mechanic where Clarke (it really doesn't HAVE to be Clarke, but it'd be interesting) finds out about them?"
> 
> Tumblr anon said nothing about appropriate angst levels.

Clarke doesn't track the time that she is away from her people. She has a sense of the seasons, and so of the years, but not the days. There was a time when the days didn't matter. Now they are impossible to recall or reclaim. It hasn't been so long, though. From a distance, Camp Jaha looks very much as it did when she left it.

She is closer when she realizes there is no movement, no noise, and parts of the Ark are missing.

Closer and she sees the gate is wide open. Closer and she sees the message etched in tall letters on an inside wall.

> _Clarke_
> 
> _Go back to the beginning_
> 
> _B_

Or is it a scuffed R? Either way, a message from her friends.

She checks the sky, marking how much daylight she will have left, and begins her hike to the drop ship.

* * *

A couple hours later, the terrain has become familiar again, and when she stops for a drink, a figure steps out to greet her. Monroe, she remembers. The girl hasn't grown any, but her features are leaner, scarred. Her right arm is inked but Clarke doesn't have a good view of it.

"Clarke? Clarke Griffin?" the girl asks, checking. She doesn't look too surprised, which sort of surprises Clarke. She doesn't expect anyone to be excited about her return, but she does think it would be unexpected.

"Hey, Roe." Clarke rises from her crouch. "Yeah, it's me."

Monroe studies her openly, then cocks her head back in the direction Clarke was headed. "I can show you the way."

Clarke smiles wearily, holding back the urge to remind the younger woman that she remembers the way.

What she finds is that she doesn't. Not that she couldn't have gotten to the drop ship on her own, but the delinquents' first camp is nothing like she remembers. It's more like a grounder settlement, a ring of roughly assembled buildings, the drop ship still prominent but modified. Improved. There is an etched sign on the fortifications that reads _Aurora_. The activity of daily life that Clarke didn't see at Camp Jaha is present behind these walls.

"Wow," she lets slip, and Monroe gives her a small grin.

"Welcome home."

* * *

People start to notice her, recognize her, as soon as Monroe leads her through the gate. The murmur swells quickly as routine is disrupted, but no one approaches her until Monty steps in front of her and hugs her without reservation. 

"Oh my god, Clarke," he says and doesn't let go. Clarke hasn't been hugged in such a long time that she hesitates before returning it. She tucks her chin into his shoulder and ignores the tears pricking in the corners of her eyes. 

"Monty," she murmurs. She's had so much time to play this scenario out in her head, knowing she would return, but she cannot speak the words. 

"I knew you were alive," Monty says when he finally holds her at arm's length to look at her.

She smiles and opens her mouth to tease or thank him when she catches sight of Bellamy approaching. His face is rugged with wear and stubble, his chest broader with muscle. And he has marks on his right arm that seem to match Monroe's.

"The prodigal princess returns," he announces, and Clarke can barely breathe, she's so relieved to hear that nickname again. When he hugs her, she can feel him kiss the top of her head. She can smell fresh earth and the day's sweat. 

"What's happened?" she asks. The question encompasses everything and not nearly enough.

* * *

He starts by informing her that Octavia is out with the hunters — and Lincoln, of course. _Of course_ , Clarke agrees; some things don't change, apparently. The Girl Under the Floor has become the woman in charge. She and Lincoln refused to stay in Camp Jaha, wouldn't be accepted with the Grounders, and decided to take the delinquents' old camp as their own.

"The Council allowed that?"

Blake laughs and shrugs. "Nothing stops Octavia. Besides, they're Grounders. Kane respects that."

"And my mom?"

Blake rolls his shoulders again and glances toward the drop ship. "I don't know. She didn't really fight it." Before Clarke can ask, he quickly continues. "So some of us came here to live with them, over time. More, when everyone else decided to go after Thelonious. The Council agreed we could use the Ark however we wanted when they left."

Clarke's head spins at the thought of the Arkers being split up again. "Are you in touch with them? Are there radios here? I should --"

Blake's hand falls gently on her shoulder. "Talk to Raven." He nods at a structure near the drop ship. "She's with us." 

Clarke looks around the village first, tallying the familiar faces. There are a handful of teens working in a wide plot of tilled earth with Monty. He is standing with Miller now, surveying the work, but they both glance up and wave before her attention moves elsewhere. 

She sees mostly teens, mostly young adults now. She can hear _children_ , and it brings the tears back to her eyes. She sees barely anyone over the age of thirty, but there are _children_.

And under that happy fact she hides the trepidation she feels knowing Raven hasn't come out to greet her.

* * *

Clarke's eyes have to adjust to the dimly lit interior, but Raven's low voice is already carrying across the room while she's still in the entryway. "Be quiet, she wouldn't take a nap all day and she needs --"

Clarke squints. Raven is sitting on a low cot, a toddler's head pillowed on her shoulder and a stunned look on her face. Clarke knows she's a strange sight, not only unexpected but clothed in a mix of fashions neither Arker nor Grounder, her face marred with a scar that flashes pale through the suntan across the bridge of her nose and one cheek. 

"Hi," she whispers, acknowledging that she heard Raven's warning.

Raven's brow furrows and Clarke can see her jaw tense, her throat working as she swallows something heavy and edged that Clarke certainly deserves. The mechanic's whole body is tensed, but she's gentle as she eases the sleeping child down to the blankets, into the warm spot that she's carefully vacated. Clarke waits, her nerves twitching with questions and uncertainty.

Freed of her burden, Raven takes Clarke firmly and silently by the arm and marches out, pulling up sharply when she sees Bellamy hovering nearby. "Watch Cleo," Raven says. Before Bellamy can make it past them to the door, she adds, "She's asleep. _Don't_ wake her.

 _Cleo_ , Clarke notes. They're already moving again, before she can ask about the name or the child, or where Raven is taking her. It turns out they're going into the drop ship, up to the second level, and that's where Raven releases her. Rounds on her - but not to strike. Raven folds her arms over her chest and glares.

"Where the hell have you been?" Raven snaps, and Clarke can hear something painful roiling under her voice. "What happened to your face?"

"I'm so sorry," Clarke starts. She turns her palms up, open, plaintive and unguarded. This much, she was ready for. "I couldn't... I couldn't stay, I needed to..."

"Fuck you, Clarke." Raven sounds wounded, but she's _hugging_ Clarke. 

Then shoves her away just as suddenly and turns so Clarke can't see her face, but can't miss muscles coiling in her back. "We were worried. You think you're the only one that needed to heal?" 

(Or the tattoo. The tattoo on her shoulder blade, which isn't the same as Bellamy and Monroe's; it's simpler.) 

"Did you _think_? Maybe some of us needed you to stay - maybe your _mom_ needed you to stay? Maybe it was time for all of us to stop losing people?"

She's so much more mobile, pacing with tight turns in the limited upper deck. But Clarke still takes the chance on stepping into her path, hands still up to show she isn't trying to stop the woman. "I know, I need to apologize to everyone, but could you help me radio my mom first?" Raven turns around so quickly that Clarke falters for a moment. "I should talk to her. I thought she'd be here."

"Yeah." The single word is clipped. Raven's gaze rakes her face.

Clarke gets a sinking feeling, the kind where she pulls away from herself. The kind where her instincts warn her to stand clear of her heart. (Raven reaches for the thin chain around her neck.) Be strong, be rational. (It tangles with the braided cord when she pulls it over her head.) Look at the missing pieces.

Raven takes one of her wrists and lowers the necklace into her hand. She pushes Clarke's still fingers closed around it. 

"I kept it for you," she says. Her voice sounds muffled, like there are so many layers of cloth between them. Clarke is stock still, doesn't care that she's gaping, just doesn't want to be found by the meaning embedded in this moment.

The ring on the chain in her hand was her father's. He gave it to her mother right before he was floated. Her mother wore it on the chain, wore the chain every day after. Her mother never took it off.

The cord Raven wears is smooth from constant wear. It's not like the necklace she wore when she came down from the Ark. There is no folded pendant hanging between her breasts. Instead there's a ring.

The ring is smaller than the one in Clarke's hand. It's thinner.

But it matches. 

"Is that Mom's?" Clarke hears herself ask. She licks her lips and wonders if maybe that isn't her real voice.

Her mom only took her wedding ring off during surgery. She would have taken it to her grave. Or she would have left it to Clarke.

Raven's hand curls around the ring.

"Yeah," she says, and the hoarseness of her voice sounds unreal too.


	2. Chapter 2

The little graveyard that began from the moment the delinquents left the Ark has grown. Not large, but at least double what it was the last time Clarke saw it. Where the original mounds are no longer visible, each is marked with a stake and initials. Raven leads her wordlessly to a barely elevated patch of earth, the stake engraved _AG_.

The practical side of Clarke flashes to the Grounder ritual of burning the bodies. Land isn't wasted and the memory of loss isn't constantly staring anyone in the face. Still, she grips her father's ring and stares at her mother's grave.

Illness, Raven had said. It was nothing more than illness that got Abby in the end. Lengthy, debilitating, and untreatable with their only doctor suffering from it. She is matter-of-fact, not accusatory, but Clarke wonders to herself - could she have helped, if she was here?

But that was almost a year ago. Her mother had been dead almost a year and her father's ring was warming in her clenched fist. "I should have been here," she says aloud, chewing on the guilt.

Raven gives her a sidelong look. "Well, you weren't. I did what I could."

"Thank you," Clarke says.

Her gaze sweeps the plots, going back to the beginning. Landing on _WJ_.

* * *

The hunters return with what they found in their traps, and one man has a twisted deer slung over his shoulders. There is a chaotic buzz as news reaches the party and Octavia comes running to meet Clarke at the central fire pit.

"You're alive!" She clutches at Clarke like she's sixteen again, but there's no denying the difference. She's grown an inch, put on more muscle, wears ink and dirt and chalky green paint like a second skin. Does she track her kills with scars, too?

Clarke relaxes into Octavia for just a moment before withdrawing. Lincoln nods at her but says nothing. "Look at you. Better than just alive." Octavia's smile curls and her eyes shine in a way that makes Clarke bite her tongue.

"When did you arrive? Did Bellamy show you around?"

Octavia acts like this is nothing, like she gets visitors and newcomers every day, like she hadn't been angry at Clarke the last time they spoke. Lincoln abandons waiting and leads the hunters further into the village to clean and divide the catch.

"Bell and Raven," Clarke acknowledges. Raven had traded places with Bellamy again as soon as they left the cemetery. Monty rejoined them for a time to hear about her travels. Raven stayed indoors, even after Clarke heard Cleo's waking cry soothed to quietness.

But now Raven emerges, leading the child on wobbling legs. Clarke watches the child's face light up when she spots them, and she breaks away from Raven at a stumbling run to latch onto Octavia's leg.

"Cleo-cleo," Octavia coos, scooping the toddler up into her arms. "Did you meet Clarke, Cleo?"

Clarke looks between the now-solemnly staring child and Raven, who has stayed where Cleo left her. "She was asleep when I got here."

"Finally got her down for a nap," Raven confirms.

Octavia's glance follows the tense sight-line between the two women and hefts Cleo higher on her hip. "Let's go tell Nontu we set aside extra for tonight," she tells her charge.

Raven watches them go and Clarke says, "Cleo is Octavia and Lincoln's?"

She knows she's giving Raven an opening by asking, but Raven isn't interested in taking it. "Bellamy named her, though. After 'Cleopatra.'" She shakes her head and Clark suppresses a smile.

The Blakes - and Lincoln, but he is a Blake, too, Clarke supposes - confer over the deer carcass, work paused while the men make faces at Cleo. Raven rolls her eyes at the scene, but Clarke can tell it doesn't bother her.

"This is surreal," Clarke murmurs. If it _is_ real, if it's still here in the morning, it's a heavy burden that's been lifted.

* * *

There is an undercurrent of celebration for the evening meal, a communal gathering at the fire pit with Clarke as the unofficial guest of honor, surrounded by shy and curious children. She isn't used to children; not on the ground and certainly not from her days on the Ark. They are small and some soft faces are almost familiar. When they are satisfied with their inspection, they move on as a chaotic flock.

Clarke's thoughts flash to the Unity Day children's pageant and wonder if it's still observed as such. She doesn't ask. She's far more interested in stories about the origins and growth of Aurora, the regional politics of trying to be recognized as distinct from the roaming Skaikru, the daily and seasonal patterns of life surrounding the drop ship. She learns about the markings she sees on nearly every arm - the identifying tattoos adopted from Grounder practice with a trefoil unique to the Blakes' blended tribe -

By the time night falls, she is overwhelmed by it all. Her body is tired from travel and her mind is tired from learning and processing.

"Are you okay with sleeping in the drop ship?" Bellamy checks, despite the preceding flurry of conversation between him and his sister over where Clarke might spend the night.

She smiles a little at the extra consideration. "At this point, I can fall asleep anywhere."

That's true on a number of levels, but it doesn't stop her gaze from flicking over the houses ringing the edge of the fire's glow, the house where she presumes Raven lives, where Raven most likely went soon after the meal was finished. No one had commented on her absence. Clarke hadn't even noticed until well into conversation, when Raven and Monty's joint effort to establish Aurora's potable water reserve was mentioned.

The hulking relic is technically the engineering domain now. It's been outfitted as a communications and monitoring center, with all the trappings of being a workshop as well. For the first time in years, Clarke falls asleep to the barely audible hum of electronics.

Her body remembers this, embraces the return.

* * *

She wakes disoriented: surrounded by metal, mechanical noises instead of natural ones, and dim lighting. But well-rested.

The drop ship, her brain supplies quickly, coming sharply alert. A habit born of so much time spent alone in her travels. She reflexively checks that her pack is nearby, untouched. Satisfied, she forcibly leaves it where it is when she steps outside. The pale yellow light of morning filters through the trees, waiting for her. The guards at the gate don't stop her. "I'll be back," she tells them anyway.

Clarke knows the way to the river, and that much has not changed beyond a distinctly beaten path. She can tell Aurora has laid some claim to the bank, with tables and racks and simple miscellanea, but it is not nearly so drastic as the way they've built up the drop ship camp. She reminds herself that these are her people as she sheds a few layers and kneels at the water's edge to wash.

This is where Octavia nearly drowned. This is where Jasper was run through with a spear.

She had never seen so much water before she saw this river.

Over the sound of the river and her work, she hears the off-gait of Raven's footsteps before the other woman speaks. "You just couldn't stay put, could you."

Clarke doesn't answer immediately, trying to gauge if Raven is talking about today or a time long passed. "I told the guards I'd be back."

Raven shrugs indifferently and lowers herself onto a rock. "I haven't been here much lately," she says, observing her surroundings before holding out a flask to Clarke.

"Does your leg bother you?" Clarke asks, curious.

"It bothers me that I still can't feel half of it," Raven says dryly. "It bothers me that I still have to carry around all these little reminders of Johnny Jaha."

"Murphy?" Clarke sniffs at the rim of the flask, catching vaguely sweet scent, before taking a tentative sip.

"Yeah, fucking Murphy." Raven tilts her head, gauging Clarke's reaction. "Good, right? Monty's learned how to make something other than moonshine."

Clarke smiles and shakes her head and returns to her washing. "He found his way without Jasper. I'm glad. I... worried."

"Adapt or die," Raven says with an air of quoting someone. "That's kind of the theme here on the ground, isn't it?"

Clarke nods, but the motion stops when she remembers: "Sometimes even the ones that adapt, die."

Raven shrugs indifferently, but her body betrays her, hand briefly closing on the ring upon her breast. Clarke feels a answering ache in her own chest. She hasn't mourned since she heard the news; she grieved for everyone when she left the Arkers behind. She grieved for herself. She has already dealt with this pain.

But still, she picks at the open wound, forcing her throat to open. "Did you ever tell her that you loved her?"

The woman's expression is inscrutable, but her posture and voice are subtly defiant, as if Clarke has issued a challenge. "Yeah, I did."

Clarke glances at the treeline and Raven bites. "It wasn't a secret. Everybody knew. We were all each other had."

Careful and deliberate, Clarke lays out her clothes to dry. Until Raven gave her her father's ring, her mother's necklace, she carried nothing from the Ark and nothing from those first months on the ground. "I wish I could have. I wish I had - told her I loved her. Explained everything."

"She knew." Raven's tone is matter-of-fact, not insisting on reassuring. "She understood."

Clarke isn't crying, but her eyes are wet. She blows out a breath.

"That's our house, you know," Raven says. "Abby's. Mine. And... yours, if you stay."

Clarke looks up at her, then back across the water. Then downstream. "I don't know. It feels weird."

"So what? You can't live in my lab."

She shakes her head. Lifts her chin. She knows she shouldn't say this, but it's Raven. Raven would hear this even if it went unsaid. "I mean, I don't know if I can stay here at all."

Raven rises. She doesn't pace, but she can stand, and Clarke stands, too. She had forgotten Raven could tower over her when she wanted, even with such a slight height advantage.

"You remember Finn?" Raven sets her jaw. Push comes to shove with zero contact. "He was all I had. Family. And then you left, and there was Abby. We've got some fucked up, complicated history, but in the end, you _are_ my family. Whether we like it or not, we're all each other has."

Clarke tries to swallow the emotion. Clenches her fists and tries to stand her ground. She can't give in. She can't. "Did you ever tell her that you loved me?"

Raven hooks her thumb into the cord, jerking Abby's ring up angrily. "She knew. Everybody knew. You walked away."

This is the part where she should apologize, Clarke realizes. This is the part where she usually says goodbye.

She hesitates. This time, Raven doesn't back down.

**Author's Note:**

> Completed (a little late) for [Doctor Mechanic Angst Day](http://doctormechanicangstday.tumblr.com/). Good job, crew. :)


End file.
